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Game 3 Preview: Portland at Utah Through two, Trail Blazers having their way with Jazz
Posted: Thursday May 11, 2000 02:03 PM
The '57 Chevy is sputtering. It's still on the road, but it's creeping along in the right lane, and there's a caravan of Portland fans behind it, their horns blaring, and their voices screaming "Beat L.A.!!" So confident are the Blazer faithful, that late in Game 2 they were already looking forward to a Western Conference Final with the Lakers. The Blazers themselves are a bit more realistic, knowing that the Jazz are capable of much more than they showed in the first two games, and that they will play better ball in their gym as the series moves to the Delta Center in Salt Lake City on Thursday night. But the Jazz have an interesting take on the reality of the situation as well. Jerry Sloan, digging deep to try and push his troops to greater things, has said in the last day or two: "They (Portland) are a lot deeper than we have ever thought about being" and "I thought we had a few guys in our locker room who felt we had a chance, but I'm not sure we have anybody now. They may already be counting the days until they can get it over." That's material for the locker room bulletin board, and it's coming from their own locker room. Portland has been the dominant force in this series because they've forced Utah away from what it does best, and forced a lot of 15- to 20-foot jumpers.
The list goes on and on, as does what appears to be a Portland march to the conference finals. Karl Malone admits that the first two games of the series have been embarrassing, and you can fully expect Utah's pride and the return to Salt Lake to energize that team. Whether that's enough to get Utah back in the series is anybody's guess, but in the big picture I think it just extends the series past four games. Ernie Johnson is in his 10th year as the studio host for TNT and TBS Superstation's NBA telecasts, as well as TNT's live coverage of the NBA Draft every June.
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